This comment (not specifically, but as it aligns with several others) serves
to show how easy it is to get out of touch with what's happening in the
institutions within which most of us spent 10-12 years of our lives.
It's true that some (few, however) teachers are present before the majority
of students are in the school. It's also true that some teachers remain
present after the students are dismissed at the end of the school day.
However, I'd add a couple of things to the already foul mix.
First of all, if my skills as an observer are not totally off, and I made
records of most of this, by the way, the ones who are present when the kids
show up are generally the same ones who are present after they've left. In
the three schools I observed, the faculty ranged in size between 105 and
198. In the cases where I made long-term records, the ones who were present
early were, with a couple of specific exceptions, the same ones as were
present late in the day, numbering typically 5 in the smallest school to 8
in the largest. In one high school, one of the teachers who stayed late was
married to a middle school teacher and she was early for the same reason
that he was late. They took one car and she dropped him off at the high
school just in time, but then arrived early. He stayed late because she
didn't get off until somewhat after he did, so he stayed late about the same
amount as she arrived early.
For a goodly period of time, I was in one school or another almost every
day, between my boys' fights and the various committee meetings, and trying
to teach teachers to do something beyond cute little calendars, etc, with
their computers. I had the advantage that I had no social bond to any of
the teachers, hence didn't have to let the fact that I liked one or another
and perhaps disliked yet another influence my assessment of their behavior
and performance.
If you ask anyone who was present, I was equally harsh with everyone,
pounding on the administrators to be more efficient at the same time that I
urged the teachers not to be so self-serving in their attitudes and, above
all, in their negotiations.
I admired the teachers who taught me along the way, and certainly harbor no
acrimony toward those who didn't. All in all, they were a tolerant and
longsuffering lot as well as being sufficiently devoted to turn many
rough-hewn youngsters into decent scholars. I remember many of my own
teachers fondly and greatly appreciate what they did to make it possible for
me to realize my current circumstances,
Those were not the teachers of today, however. It's true they now have
neither the respect nor the authority that was afforded their predecessors,
but they haven't the determination and self-respect that was common to the
teachers I remember. You needn't wander any further than the teachers'
lounge to learn that they regard their peers and sometimes even themselves
as relatively lazy and lacking in ambition. I didn't invent this view of
our current crop, either, by the way, as it is reflected in the news almost
daily.
In general it appears the Republicans see them as may become if their course
isn't altered, while the Democrats see them as the democrats wish they would
become.
I personally would support an effort to limit the length of time a teacher
can teach to five years at a stretch. After this time is up, I'd require
they go out into the world and do something else for five years, at the end
of which I'd see they were paid as much as they got for doing whatever they
were doing, so long as it wasn't teaching. After five years, do it again .
. . Each year, I'd also dismiss the bottom 10% based on performance, but
without prejudice, allowing them to take 5 years to do something else, and
replace them with new graduates. After five years they could reapply with
the assumption that they had learned something valuable in the interim.
I've heard stories about fellows like your EE/Music double major. I've
never seen one up close though. It's probably a California-ism. That place
is like another planet. I like to visit, but I wouldn't like to live
there.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list_at_wfi-inc.com>
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: Re: languages (Teachers)
>This is total bullshit. Total. A very good, long-time friend of mine did 5
>years at University to come out with a dual EE/Music Comp. degree and
>walked into a $60k per year job with a cutting-edge tech company. He works
>8 hours a day, maybe 2 hours extra at home to straighten out paperwork.
>Maybe. In addition to his base salary, he receives stock options that just
>about double his yearly salary. He is 27 and owns a house in Huntington
>Beach, less than three blocks from the shore. He just returned from a
>three-week vacation in Italy, after being with the company for 4 years.
>
>Anyone who kills themselves in school to walk out into a $45k per year job
>that requires *140* hours per week is not intelligent. A person who does
>this today is either a moron or a massochist. If this is what you want for
>your children, that's up to you.
>
>This is my last post on the subject. I do wonder what really soured you on
>teachers, besides your claim to have studied them so closely in the work
>environment. To demean the entire teaching profession as it exists today
>in gross generalizations shows a lack of objectivity and portrays you as
>nothing but a bitter, old crank.
>
>To that end, I'm not sure what rubs me so raw about this...usually I can
>keep my big mouth shut. But listening to someone bash a group of people
>who are generally dedicated to their profession, and who put up with poor
>materials and low salaries, makes me sick.
>
>Aaron
>
>On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
>> Allison, I believe you've been sold a bill of goods.
>>
>> First of all, look at what a teacher has to do for his/her education and
>> later for his/her salary as compared, say, to an engineering student.
>From
>> what I've observed myself, and even more so from what I hear from my
boys,
>> both in college, the workload in a typical week for an engineering
student
>> adds up to about what an education major does in a semester. Secondly,
he
>> doesn't have to look forward to those 7 20-hour-day work-weeks for the
next
>> ten years, and he knows that he needn't worry about being fired, laid
off,
>> or much of anything else that would rock the boat. Sure, he gets about
$45K
>> after ten years, rather than the 60-75K the engineer will get, but he
only
>> has to work a 6-hour day, and he only has to do that 183 days a year to
get
>> full salary and, ultimately a generous pension.
>>
>> Secondly, look at the quality of those individuals. These are people who
>> didn't do so well in high school, mainly due to lack of ambition and
>> diligence, didn't want to work too hard in college, and, of course,
couldn't
>> get into a good college. Fortunately, a good college isn't required. On
>> top of that, he's chosen a niche in which he only has to work a 6-hour
day,
>> and he only has to do that 183 days a year to get full salary and,
>> ultimately a generous pension.
>>
>> Of course he's not into it for the money. He doesn't want to work hard
>> enough to earn a lot of money.
>>
>> Dick
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: allisonp_at_world.std.com <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
>> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
>> Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 1:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: Re: languages (Teachers)
>>
>>
>> >On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, George Rachor wrote:
>> >
>> >> >>> On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, sjm wrote:
>> >> >>>> lazy (everybody has a teacher horror story to tell). But those
who
>> >> >>>> stand out in my mind were the genuine heros. They were IN to
what
>> >> >>>> they did. They LOVED the kids. They latched on to us and
energized
>> >> >>>> us and really taught us. They made us solve problems, they made
us
>> >
>> >True.
>> >
>> >My father was a construction contractor and used to have several
teachers
>> >that worked for him during the busy summer months so they could make
>> >what my mother did as a LPN (2years college).
>> >
>> >When I left DEC I looked at teaching, I needed a masters in teaching
over
>> >any technical degrees and could expect to make 10-20thousand less a
year.
>> >It's pretty sad that that the average teacher has 4-6 years of college
>> >education and makes less than the average person with that kind of time
in
>> >a technical degreee.
>> >
>> >Allison
>> >
>> >
>>
>
Received on Fri Mar 10 2000 - 22:30:38 GMT